The game of poker has grown so much and despite what many say I still see it growing today. In fact, it’s so easy to start a poker game that the game can run incorrectly.

Let me explain.

Poker on TV seems very simple. You see a dealer, a table, players and chips, and a deck of cards. The dealer deals clockwise from a white disk, players act in turn and in the words of Emeril Lagassee “BAM” you have a poker game.

Well, as I travel around this great planet of ours, a poker game seems to find me, or do I seek out a game wherever I am? Either way I find myself at a local casino buying some form of poker chips. The currency isn’t always the same, but the habits on the poker table are.

Unfortunately, more often than not I’m bored to tears within the first hour, yet for the regulars I find their attitude similar to those I meet and play with at The Bike or Commerce. So why am I bored?

The downfall for me is two-fold, one is because I understand the mechanics of running a successful (read profitable) game from the standpoint of profit for the casino and tokes for the dealer. Call it a curse from being a Worldwide Tournament Director who builds poker rooms and tournaments in casinos and also in some of the most unlikely spots in the world. Second, is because I’m spoiled. I play in California, on the Tournament Circuit and I have some of the best dealers on the planet who join me when I run a poker tournament. These games are run as efficiently as I expect.

When I’m in a poker room in a foreign country, oft times it’s the kind of game that was put together after an episode of a poker re-run on ESPN. The casino manager will say, “Hey that game looks like fun, let’s add it to the casino”, and this is where the problem for me begins.

I’m not only a cash game player in casinos, but I also play online poker. I’m used to getting about 34 hands an hour in a casino and online, well, at least 100. So when I sit down in a game where no one chose to check procedures, write rules or understand the mechanics of how the game should run and what the dealers are really supposed to do it drives me crazy. It also translates to about 14-16 hands an hour. That’s when I’m bored to tears.

What are some of the procedural things that I see?

Selling chips in and out of the tray! This works at a blackjack table, but not at poker.

Using a shuffling machine, but never hand shuffling if the next deck isn’t ready!

Not having must move tables, so players move in and out at will

Not understanding posting or Missed blinds

Not allowing players to buy the button

Allowing the dealer to be the social director, instead of purely dealing

Using a dead card slot for folded hands, like in blackjack for the discards

Lifting cards into the muck, instead of sliding them to protect the integrity of the game

Using only one deck at a table, so if someone marks the cards, they get to have them all night.

And more…

So why do you play at all Warren, you ask?

Simple really, if the casino and the city it’s in are new to Poker. Then most likely the players are new to poker and therefore have a lesser skill set than I do.

Hey wait, maybe that’s why I want to get out more hands per hour!!!